


Bunny Bite

by softmoth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Wings, Castiel/Dean Winchester Cuddles, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Sick Sam Winchester, Sickfic, Touchy-Feely, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:24:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7096675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softmoth/pseuds/softmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets sick and Dean learns the true meaning of <s>life</s> <s>christmas</s> <s>friendship</s> home. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>"Alright Sam, wakey wakey. Time to get you to a doctor, ok? Hey, might not be so bad, I bet they’re all backwards here and some hot nurse will have to take your temperature with a rectal thermometer. That’ll be fun, right?"</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bunny Bite

**Author's Note:**

> A response to [spn hiatus creations prompt](http://spnhiatuscreations.tumblr.com/) for Week 1. Comments and critique are appreciated more than I can express.

To be fair, the whole thing had started out pretty ridiculous. They had been trying to sniff out the meeting place of a local witch coven in Wyoming after finding a suspicious hex bag hidden in the pocket of an alleged “suicide jumper”.

Only, instead of jumping from a bridge or a building, the man had strangely chosen to jump directly into a particularly narrow stretch of canyon, catching and snapping bones against every rock and branch he had hit on the way down. The death had been reported in the local paper due to the gristly conditions of the incident. Poor bastard’s body had been mangled six ways to Sunday by the time they’d got to him, police already taping off the scene and directing away pedestrians.

It had all been fairly standard- Dean flashing his fake badge to an irritated sergeant, Sam stepping his gargantuan legs over yellow police lines in order to get a closer look at the body. After finding the tiny drawstring purse, filled with what looked to be shards of bone and a single tooth, he’d given Dean the nod, the ‘yep this is our kind of case’ nod, and together they’d made their inconspicuous retreat.

Except, the first place Sam had insisted on scoping out was a local forest preserve. At night. During the witching hour.

“The bag,” he’d said as the beam of his flashlight reflected off the silver padlock winding through the iron gates of the forest preserve’s entrance. “There was this sticky stuff all over it, tree sap, I mean. It’s worth a shot, right?”

Dean already had out the bolt cutters.

“Hell, I’ll take any excuse for a little breaking 'n entering. Best way to spend a Thursday night!”

He clips through the padlock’s chain with a grunt and it falls away, loud rattling as it hits the ground. Sam grabs the gate and swings it open, creaking so ominously Dean swears its straight out of a B-movie screamer.

And that’s when it all went to shit.

But honestly, how was Dean supposed to know that jackalopes liked to nest in forest preserves? Or that the damn things had _teeth_ , tiny sharp little teeth that sink into your ankle and lock in like a pitbull. Or that they attacked in swarms, hundreds of jumping little terrors hissing and snapping in a brown fluffy flock of anger at their nest site being disturbed.

He’d been lucky enough to avoid being bitten, partially due to the thick covering of his boots and partially due to his innate talent and excellent aim as he kicked jackalopes left and right, grabbing Sam by the arm and yanking him back towards the Impala.

Sam, on the other hand, had not been so lucky, swearing profusely after rolling up the ankle of his jeans in the passenger seat to reveal a dotted circle of bitemarks right on the tendon. One had gotten him, just above the edge of his worn sneakers. The bite was small but deep, welling up with beading blood.

“Fuck, it hurts.” He mops at it with the sleeve of his shirt. “It stings so bad.”

Dean cackles as he drives, glancing between the road and his brother’s pissed off expression.

“Really, you’re gonna be a little girl about a bunny bite? Oh, poor Samantha! What next, a unicorn might break your nail?”

“Shut up, Dean, I’m not kidding. It really burns. What if I’ve got rabies or something?”

Dean shakes his head, glancing up in the rearview mirror.

“Rabies. From a jackalope. Yeah, that sounds real serious, Sammy.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“I really, really don’t.”

Dean spots an illuminated sign to the left of the road ahead of them, a motel. Hopefully one with vacancy, considering they were in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere with very few other prospects for miles.

“Ok, fine,” Dean placates. “How about we pull over here for the night, you clean up your bitch bite, and we both get some shuteye. Then we drive back in the morning, when those little antlered assholes are sleeping.”

Sam is still rubbing his ankle, but he shoots Dean a narrow-eyed look.

“How do you know jackalopes are nocturnal?”

Dean pulls into the motel parking lot with a single smooth turn, switching off the engine.

“What? I’m not allowed to know things?”

“Not usually, no.”

Sam rolls down his jeans, and Dean notices that the bite is still weeping an alarming amount of blood, enough to visibly darken the denim as the two make their way into the motel and procure a room for the night.

It’s the same old song and dance with the desk clerk ( _“sorry guys, we’ve just got the one room with a double...or is that **not** an issue?” wink wink nudge nudge hahaha ...ha_ ) and Dean ignores the knowing smirk as he snatches the set of keys and mumbles, “it’s fine dude, whatever”.

He was so not in the mood right now.

Sam tosses out a dimpled smile of an apology before they both retreat to the shared room.

\---

It was a little past 4am when the chills had started. Squashed up against his brother it was hard for Dean to ignore- Sam was shaking so fiercely that he had jolted Dean awake.

The first thing Dean notices after rousing himself from sleep is that Sam is incredibly sweaty. They’re both stripped down to their boxers and it doesn’t take much to register the chilled, clammy skin slicking against his.

Sam’s forehead is wet when Dean reaches up to press the back of his hand against it, and his hair was stuck in curls against his neck. His teeth are chattering.

“Sammy!” Dean hiss-whispers, shaking his brother’s shoulder. “Wake up, man, you’re burning up.”

Sam groans and tries to swat away Dean’s hands, turn away on his side, but Dean hoists up on to his knees and grips Sam’s shoulders, forcing him flat. He gives his brother another shake.

“Seriously, Sam, wake up. Something’s wrong. Wake up!”

Sam doesn’t open his eyes. Dean reluctantly lets go of one shoulder only long enough to yank the chain on the bedside lamp, lighting up the room in a faint yellow glow.

He turns back to Sam and, christ, his brother looks like hell. He’s shivering all over, and his skin is a sickly jaundiced tinge- ashen and yellow everywhere save his cheeks, which burn a bright rashy red.

Dean’s still barking at Sam to wake up even as he jumps up from the bed, rushing to the attached bathroom and grabbing one of the white motel washcloths to wet in the sink.

He returns to Sam’s side and wipes down his face as best as he can, wincing along with Sam at every rough pass of scratchy towel over fevered skin.

“Sorry,” Dean says, and he genuinely means it. He drapes the washcloth over Sam’s forehead. Hopefully it would cool him down some. “What the hell happened?”

Then it clicks. The bite. Dean grabs the bottom edge of the blanket, yanking it from the bed. Sam moans in protest, scrambling to stay underneath the humid comforter.

Dean grabs at Sam’s foot, twisting it around to get a look at the bite, but he doesn’t need to move it much before it's obvious. Sam’s entire ankle is black and blue, bruised and swollen around where the jackalope had bit him. There’s a yellow, crusty drip where the bite had been weeping as they slept, and Dean wants to gag a little.

But mostly, he feels like crap for not noticing sooner.

“Aw shit,” he says. “Guess I shouldn’t have laughed at the rabies thing, huh?”

Sam doesn’t respond, he’s back to lying still. Well, almost still, with exception to the trembling shivers that shake through him in staccato bursts.

Gathering more towels from the bathroom, Dean cleans the wound as best he can, wrapping it up and applying pressure. He swallows when he looks up.

“I think...I think we need to get you to an ER, Sam. Like, yesterday. This looks pretty nasty.”

Dean hates when Sam is sick like this, lying back, eyes closed. It reminds him too much of those awful days before they’d opened Hell, when Azazel was still playing his fucked up games. Reminds him of watching over Sammy’s corpse. Staring at his little brother’s dead body, too delirious with grief to bury it or burn it. Losing his mind, completely.

He shakes his head as if to physically shake out the memory. Dean can’t think about that, not right now. Can’t lose his cool. It’s just a fever, just an infection.

“Alright Sam, wakey wakey. Time to get you to a doctor ok? Hey, might not be so bad, I bet they’re all backwards here and some hot nurse will have to take your temperature with a rectal thermometer. That’ll be fun, right?”

Sam groans. Dean’s unsure if it's in pain or in response to his suggestion.

“Mmno, just wanna...sleep. No doctor...just…” Sam trails off, teeth chattering but limbs stubbornly locked in place. There was no moving him, if he didn’t want to be moved. And he clearly did not.

Ok, fine. Dean can work with this.

So, Dean climbs back into bed. The sweaty sheets feel disgustingly tepid against his bare chest, but he resolutely ignores the sensation, intent on curling up against Sam and keeping him as warm as possible.

Sam tries to shove him away, but Dean clings.

“C’mon dude, you’re breaking my heart here. Just let me be the big spoon, you’re freezing, ok? Just. Let me.”

Sam stills and Dean hugs him closer. Tries not to think about it.

But as the minutes press on, and Sam’s shaking doesn’t cease, he starts to panic. Not a huge panic, but just enough to start a loop in his head, one of those no-I-don’t-pray prayers, where he’s pleading in his mind to anyone and everyone that might be out there listening: _please, please, make this better, please help me make this better_.

There’s a rustle somewhere behind him, the flap of a breeze that’s completely out of place inside the motel room, and Dean doesn’t have to turn around to know who it is.

“Hello, Dean-"

The bedside lamp sparks as the lightbulb pops, goes out.

"...you called?”

\---

Somehow, between Castiel’s unexpected arrival and Dean’s barely tempered panic, the two of them had managed to squash themselves into the double bed along with Sam, not unlike a pack of awkward sardines.

Dean had explained the situation to Castiel in hushed tones- how Sam had gotten bitten and was having some kind of bizarro reaction, how he had no idea what to do, how he couldn’t wrestle his moose of a brother out of the motel and to an ER, and how the best Dean could think of was to keep Sam warm for now until he came to his senses.

Unquestioningly, Castiel had shucked his trenchcoat and slipped into the bed right behind Dean. As though the entire plan made perfect sense and he was just seamlessly assuming his role within it.

Dean wasn’t sure if it was creepy or endearing. Probably somewhere in the middle.

Castiel’s voice is quiet, and close. “This has you very upset. Why?”

And something about the darkness of the room, the heat on his front from Sam’s sick body and the heat on his back from Castiel’s solid frame, it makes Dean feel strangely vulnerable. Suddenly, he wants to get it out. The real reason why he felt so, well. Unwell.

“I dunno,” Dean whispers, turning Sam’s face into his neck so that he can press a cheek against his brother’s head. And ok, yeah, it’s a little gay, but sue him. This is serious shit. “It's just like. I dunno. He kinda looks like how he did back then, back when I thought… when Sammy died, when I thought he was gone and all I had was this empty husk. But I couldn't let go, couldn't just. Let him go, just like that. Something got broken, I swear to god. Laying him out, yelling at him, even though I knew he wasn’t in there anymore. Something inside me just broke.”

He feels Castiel scooch closer against his back, a pointy chin pressing into Dean’s shoulder. He’s half tempted to shrug the angel away, but allows it- if, for no other reason, than to avoid jostling Sam in the process and potentially waking him up from his fevered slumber.

“No part of you is broken, Dean. Inside or otherwise.”

Careful fingers creep up Dean’s bare side, arcing over and around his scapula to press into the familiar palm-shaped scar seared on his skin. Castiel’s hand aligns perfectly, and Dean swears the print tingles.

“I should know. I was very careful with your body.”

Dean can’t resist a snort, though there’s an awful lump forming in his throat that he doesn’t like. Not at all.

“That’s… yeah. Thanks for that, Cas.”

“You are welcome. It was a privilege, to know you so intimately.”

"Aaand, you just officially made it weird. Good job, that was like record time for you."

Dean receives an indignant sniff, but no other reply.

There’s an odd sensation then, something soft and silky slipping over Dean’s side, and at first he thinks that Castiel pulled some kind of sheet over the both of them. But it’s too soft for anything that the shitty motel could offer. This was like, 1000-thread-count, silk-sheets-you-can’t-afford soft. And so warm, almost...downy?

From the corner of his eye Dean sees a cluster of black feathers- feathers large enough to span the entirety of his forearm- and they fold over his torso.

Wings.

Castiel was wrapping Dean up in his wings.

Dean...isn’t sure what to make of that. But he pulls Sam closer, angles his brother’s exhausted body tighter against his own to better fit Sam beneath the giant wing as well.

Castiel seems to get the hint, because he shifts and stretches, and then they are all curled under a blanket of dark, warm angelwing.

And, yeah, it’s weird, it’s kind of messed up to basically be cuddling your sick little brother while an angel spoons you from behind and swaddles you both in his huge-ass wings. But for some reason… Dean feels peaceful. A bone-deep kind of peace that settles somewhere in his chest, smooth and warm like a swallow of whiskey. 

It’s at once both strange and familiar: having the two people that he cared about the most, that he needed to _protect_ the most, both right up against him where he can feel them and keep them safe, if only for a night.

It’s good.

Holding on to Sam while Castiel holds them both, Dean thinks about how he spends so much time looking for that safe ending just around the bend. That magical future place where everyone he loves can finally rest easy, be happy. Wanting to make that future for them, get them there no matter the cost.

He’d go (had gone) to hell and back to get these two men there. To get them home.

But maybe this? This fucked up trifecta the three of them had forged, this thing they had made together in the here and the now- maybe this was home all along.

Jesus, isn’t that a thought? A chick-flick moment, for sure.

Castiel’s gravely voice is so close to Dean’s ear that he can feel the rumbling tremor.

“You take care of your brother. You watch over Sam. And I will watch over you.”

And for once, Dean doesn’t protest.

**Author's Note:**

> ([tumblr](http://soft-moth.tumblr.com/) for messages/prompts/friends ♥)


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